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I have to refute what you say "da-sein" means "being-there". This sophistic use of language.

The way I see it Heidegger took a phenomenological look at language, where to Husserl he drove phenomenology towards a way of uncovering the foundation of science.

Phenomenology for Heidegger may well be ontological, but phenomenology is not ontological it is phenomenological. Dasein as I see it is an attempt to establish a non-existent point of presence outside of presence. There is no need for dasein in phenomenological investigation because it merely covers up phenomenology more than it is already covered up in being called "phenomenology".

Heideggers focus is language not phenomenology. He partakes in a phenomenological investigation of language.

As an anagolous view of what "dasein" means I can say that it is "being-there" as the instant now looking upon itself being. Heidegger differs from Husserl, in my understanding, in that he vjews existence as grasping towards our own sense of being where Husserl makes no such assumption as to what is being grasped at only that there is a grasping that may uncover our sense of self or the sense of the universe. Such a difference is of no significance directly in the phenomenological procedure. Although, that said, Husserl was clear as to his intent and how he was grasping at the founding of science in order to give science a new founding, ironically by further sedimenting it during the procedure of uncovering its origin.

What I have noticed with Husserl is that people often mistake his use of "object" as meaning something "in-itself" or out-there. All that matters in phenomenology is constitution of the phonemonological and givenness of its object (object may well be dasein, dog or the number one). The idea of dualism has no place in phenomenology other than as an "object" of phenomenological investigation which is seen through application of logic and through which Heidegger holds fast above and beyond within his created object that lies outside phenomenological experience.

My question only remains as to what use "dasein" is as a concept to me and whether I wish to use it. Of course I may very well never be able to grasp what the concept is and so fail Heidegger as much as he has failed to explain to me what it is he is saying. I know new concepts are intially hard to hold once you're newly introduced to them. I think for this reason he hides in an excuse of hermeneutics and covers up the meaning of the concept with its none meaning in order to give a pretense of meaning, not just to me but also to himself.

He starts with semantics and moves into etymology and produces hermeneutics. He does admit to our lack of grammatical structure to deal with what he says yet soldiers on regardless further burying the phenomenological procedure behind him.

I cannot remember if he mentions "I"? I have being. I am a being. I am being. Without language there is no "I" only being. It is sophistic to say something like being of being prior to a conceptually verbal "I".

Dasein is the pre-ontological understanding of being that lacks full accessibility ontologically?

What is ontic-ontological priority of Dasein? What is its "genuine ontological structure"? Does this really mean anything or is he hiding behind meaning with the excuse of interpretations? Basically he is being sophistical in his approach and is not inclined to show any reason for doing such a thing and leaves the reader hanging on accept in several cases where he takes, often several, pages to say some that is summed up quite simply and logcially in the final paragraph. This is done a number of times and leads the reader to believe in some sense when there is none in other areas (or I am just not smart enough to understand or lack the ability to find direct value in his words).

One thing I can say. I often make less sense than Heidegger!

Note: I am always very scathing in me view of philosophers. I am equally scathing towards Husserl. It is the best way I know to find sense or meaning.

Burning ghost:

I have to refute what you say "da-sein" means "being-there". This sophistic use of language.

This is not the ordinary use of the term but it is how Heidegger uses the term and how it is often translated.

The way I see it Heidegger took a phenomenological look at language, where to Husserl he drove phenomenology towards a way of uncovering the foundation of science.

Heidegger’s concern was not the foundation of science but something more basic. Husserl, so to speak, starts in the middle.

Phenomenology for Heidegger may well be ontological, but phenomenology is not ontological it is phenomenological.

Husserl starts with a phenomenology of consciousness, Heidegger a phenomenology of Being. Without consciousness there is no phenomenology but without Being there is no consciousness.

Dasein as I see it is an attempt to establish a non-existent point of presence outside of presence.

Dasein is the “there” to which, in whose presence, what is present is present. Dasein is not outside of but completes the circle of presence. “There” does not mean elsewhere. To be there to witness an event, for example, does not mean to be somewhere else but where the event occurs.

There is no need for dasein in phenomenological investigation because it merely covers up phenomenology more than it is already covered up in being called "phenomenology".

This is like saying there is no need for consciousness or the Cartesian subject in phenomenology.

I have being. I am a being. I am being.

This is where Heidegger thinks the history of philosophy has taken a wrong step. He emphasizes the difference between Being and beings. I am the being to which Being is thought, the being that raises the question of Being.

Dasein is the pre-ontological understanding of being that lacks full accessibility ontologically?

Dasein does not come into the world philosophically mature posing the question of Being. Pre-ontological does not mean prior to Being or beings, but prior to thinking the problem of Being. We lack full access to Being, that is part of its "genuine ontological structure". There is always something unseen, something unknown, something unthought. Human understanding is not progressive in the sense that we continually uncover more and more until we have uncovered the whole which will then lie fully accessible before us. There is no revealing that is not at the same time a concealing. No light that does not leave something else in the dark. No presence that does not absence. Both Being and Dasein play an active role in revealing and concealing, both reveal and conceal.

Phenomenology is about phenomenon. Not phenomenon as opposed to anything else.

Phenomenal experience is the heart of the matter for Husserl. Dasein is not a phenomenal experience is it?

Being is known as a dualistic proposition that is the general genesis of logic. Being as a term is related to phenomenal experience not through being but through experiential phenomenon. Nothing is brought "into" experience it is experienced. Being is known in the fact of the experience of phenomenon. To say something like there is no consciousness without being or there is no being without consciousness is garb of languaged logic.

I am not a being I am grasping towards unless I choose to express myself in an artistic/mystical sense, which has its use unto itself.

If I remember correctly Heidegger actually does a good job of destroying his own idea of Dasein when he talks about "seeing" what someone means. He unwittingly reveals that Dasein is a product of such analogies and lies in some supposed place outside of sensibility yet only revealed by sensibility as an analogy of sensibility in a further removed structure of language.

Yes, phenomenology is of consciousness. It makes little sense to talk of phenomenology being a method in which consciousness is absent. Phenomenology of being is the phenomenology of consciousness of being. Heidegger does start by looking at the "question", but for me overshoots this important position.

Burning ghost:

Phenomenal experience is the heart of the matter for Husserl. Dasein is not a phenomenal experience is it?

In order for there to be phenomenal experience there must be someone to experience it. Dasein is not phenomenal experience, Dasein experiences phenomena.

To say something like there is no consciousness without being or there is no being without consciousness is garb of languaged logic.
The logic of language is, as Wittgenstein said, arbitrary. The logic is determined by usage. Both Husserl and Heidegger make use of a specialized language that is not fully commensurate either one with the other or with more common usage.
For Husserl being is a necessary condition for consciousness. If I do not exist I do not have consciousness. Cartesian subjectivity is fundamental for Husserl. He takes the subject as a given. Heidegger does not. He asks about the existence of the subject, and more fundamentally, about existence itself.

I remember correctly Heidegger actually does a good job of destroying his own idea of Dasein when he talks about "seeing" what someone means. He unwittingly reveals that Dasein is a product of such analogies and lies in some supposed place outside of sensibility yet only revealed by sensibility as an analogy of sensibility in a further removed structure of language.

I do not know what you are referring to. I do not see why seeing what someone means destroys the idea of Dasein. Dasein is not outside of sensibility. What led you to this conclusion?

Phenomenology of being is the phenomenology of consciousness of being.

Not according to Heidegger. Trying to shoehorn him into Husserl’s terminology leads to confusion and misunderstanding.

I know I am confused by him I am confused by all philosophers to some degree or another.

By saying dasein is outside of sensibility I mean just that. If dasein cannot be experienced then it is outside of experience.

If dasein experiences phenomena then it does not experience its own phenomena accept as a supposition arrived at through phenomena. If dasein is not phenomenon it is outside of experience.

By "seeing" I was referring to his examination of colloquialism when people say "I see what you mean." but are not actually referring to "sight". To be honest it was over a year ago I read it and briefly skimming through the book again now I cannot find it (will get back to you on that - may be a while because guess what just aerived in the post ... "Crisis" and "Philosophical Investigations").

Can you be experienced? I don't think this is the same question that Jimi asked.

Fooloso4 wrote:Can you be experienced? I don't think this is the same question that Jimi asked.

Huh?

You said Dasein cannot be experienced so I asked if you could be experienced. You are Dasein.

Jimi refers to a song by Jimi Hendrix.

That is where the confusion of language begins.

You can experience me yet I am in possession of experience. I can obviously experience my physical presence by looking in a mirror or touching my face. To say I can experience beyond that is fantasy.

The fantasy is stil an experience though. In looking into what I mean by experiencing self we do so by phenomenological investigation into the "pieces" and "moments, the "founding".

Heidegger is most probably mistakening language as being ubiquitous. This is the common usage of "language" I am talking about.

Dasein is trying not to be a thing in itself yet that is precisely what it is set up as in its conception.

The experience and experiencer are not distinct. It is merely a common theme of language that attributes an action with an actor. Heideggers dasein lives through language and views being as directed at lingual objects and dasein as directed at prelingual objects (sorry if that is oblique). I mean dasein is a confusion between automation and intended action. When I want to go somewhere I don't think about walking there I just walk there. To Heidegger it appears this overemphasis on "thought" (at worded thought not some form of cognitive mapping or sensory narrative, kineaesthethics).

-- Updated August 2nd, 2016, 11:34 pm to add the following --

Heidegger was correct in pointing out that our grammar is inadequate as can be seen by me say "possession" of experience. The "I" is the experiencing and phenomenology is the investigation into this experiencing. Heidegger takes a particular direction with phenomenology and then abandons his starting position, or rather Husserls starting position.

Greetings. I don't have much time lately. But i did want to tell Burning ghost that fooloso4 put forth a very puzzling and actually pretty profound statement on Heidegger and really, post modern thought in general. It is ponderous and needs a great deal of attention paid to the words:

"Dasein does not come into the world philosophically mature posing the question of Being. Pre-ontological does not mean prior to Being or beings, but prior to thinking the problem of Being. We lack full access to Being, that is part of its "genuine ontological structure". There is always something unseen, something unknown, something unthought. Human understanding is not progressive in the sense that we continually uncover more and more until we have uncovered the whole which will then lie fully accessible before us. There is no revealing that is not at the same time a concealing. No light that does not leave something else in the dark. No presence that does not absence. Both Being and Dasein play an active role in revealing and concealing, both reveal and conceal."

Keeping in mind that all of this second order thinking is itself dasein, bound to interpretative possibilities. Why is this important? Because it presents a view on human understanding which says that even at the foundational level of Being itself, we are interpretatively bound. Our words are at best, ready to hand! see page 76 (original German) on reference and signs. Also see his attack on Descartes (and Husserl) at page 95 and following.

also, with Heidegger, it is a good idea to speak his language to talk about his ideas. 'Experience' is not in his philosophical vocabulary, because for him it is both question begging, given the word's assumption that to experience is somehow self justifying and intuitively clear, and tainted by use. The issue he takes with Descartes focuses on the unexamined assumption that substance as extension is axiomatic. It's not, for these terms are intended to be about what penetrates to things themselves, as Husserl put it, that is, to presence at hand. One of Heidegger's major contributions is in hermenuetics. we are interpretatively embedded in a self referential system of dasein, and in that system the most fundamental examination one can give is ontology, but this term, and its enterprise, is itself part of the very interpretative system it sets out to understand.

Being (truth) is made, not discovered, is Rorty's way of putting it.

Jimi Hendrix?? Better would be Antonin Artaud. His plays remind us of the power of presence at hand that can assault one with such ferocity tht it constitutes a kind of wake up call for the raw intuition of Being. Is there nothing, one could ask, that comes through ready to hand that speaks of an absolute and undeniable Being as such? I will further read into later Heidegger for the development his thinking regarding the intuitive force of presence at hand that seems to break the boundaries of hermeneutics. After all, is the everydayness of dasein's pragmatic ready to hand sufficient to account for the intense caring, suffering in the world?; or, in the disclosing through ready to hand ontology (and there is no escaping this since all language is grounded in ready to hand) of the world, is presence at hand qua presence at hand ever intimated?


It helps to read Kant to get the idea that when you encounter an object in-the-world, in its being you are witnessing ready to hand. Ready to hand is H's version of Kant's synthesizing apriori concepts that organize the world and are "always already' there when an act of cognition occurs; and for Kant, it is all cognition. When you look at the clock on the wall it is, if you will, already cognized, or precognized, and you couldn't even have an "experience" unless this were so. Things would be as William James put it, "blooming and buzzing" with nothing parsing out individuality. Heidegger's

-- Updated August 3rd, 2016, 11:13 am to add the following --

I need to read, fooloso4, more on later Heidegger to speak to comments you made on this. For now, I am looking through BT only.

Hereandnow:

Jimi Hendrix??

Just reminded me of the words to one of his songs: "Have you ever been experienced?" Bad joke.

Heidegger's use of the term 'presence' in his later writings goes far beyond what is present at hand in BT. Roughly, the focus shifts from how things are taken by Dasein to what is given (es gibt), what is given by Being in time, that is, what becomes present.

Here and Now wrote:

One of Heidegger's major contributions is in hermenuetics. we are interpretatively embedded in a self referential system of dasein, and in that system the most fundamental examination one can give is ontology, but this term, and its enterprise, is itself part of the very interpretative system it sets out to understand.

I'm probably not understanding, however it seems to me that there are many Daseins possibly an infinite number of Daseins in which case self referential systems are as many as there are Daseins.

As Heidegger was an existentialist I suppose that he never did define human nature. I don't suppose Heidegger ever wrote anyone's biography, or I suppose that he was not a historiographer, so he would never be required to select or interpret with his philosopher's hat on.

Hi Belinda. H. doesn't use terms like human nature that I've read. Nor did he write anyone's biography that I know of. Not sure what you mean by the philosopher's hat precluding writing one. Are you saying that philosophers speaking as philosophers don't really get to the real, the personal?

Hereandnow wrote:Hi Belinda. H. doesn't use terms like human nature that I've read. Nor did he write anyone's biography that I know of. Not sure what you mean by the philosopher's hat precluding writing one. Are you saying that philosophers speaking as philosophers don't really get to the real, the personal?

Human nature is an idea which existentialists don't believe in . Existentialist believe in processes not permanent facts. And this is what I am implying.

My point about writing biography or history is that it's necessary for the biographer or the historiographer to select and interpret. Heidegger's Dasein has its unique interpretation of whatever Dasein is engaged with at any time and place. No biographer nor historiographer is NOT Dasein. Each biographer and each historiographer IS Dasein. Which is to say that the self is the foundation of ideas, not 'reason': not 'God': but the self and only the self. It follows therefore that no biography or history is definitive of the events, but that all biographies and all histories are interpretations and only interpretations.


There is a problem for some people here in that selves, Daseins, are not sufficient bases for ethics, as all Daseins can interpret from their own peculiar perspectives only. Those people who believe that ethics must be grounded in transcendent reason, or transcendent God are opposed to existentialist hermeneutics.

Belinda:

There is a problem for some people here in that selves, Daseins, are not sufficient bases for ethics, as all Daseins can interpret from their own peculiar perspectives only.

Dasein, according to Heidegger, is the only basis for ethics. The problem is that he takes a passive rather than critical stance with regard to ethics. This relates to your second comment regarding our own peculiar perspectives. Our perspectives, according to Heidegger, are historically determined. Despite our differences we all think like 21st century westerners. We might individually or as part of a larger group say “yes” or “no” but our options are already determined by our historical situatedness.

History is not, however, simply what has been and what has happened. The direction of time is not from the past to the present, but rather the approach of the future; what comes to be. To be responsible is to be responsive to what comes to be, to what is given to thought by Being, what becomes present to be thought.

Being is not something that gives, it is not a being. He wants to draw our attention to the giving rather than to get locked into the assumption that there must be something, some being, that gives. He calls this assumption, metaphysics. The rejection of metaphysics is made possible by its own history. It has played itself out. So, history is not linear in either direction. It is not simply that we are given something new to think which causes us to disregard what has been thought. It is only when we have worked through what has been thought that we make clear the possibility for thinking differently. This means both what has been worked out through the history of philosophy but also the perspective that this working out has given us that allows us to see it as a whole and to thereby to, in Heidegger’s terms, retrieve what was forgotten, what became hidden from thought, that can now be uncovered and thought. That is, Being as presence rather than the highest being.